New Album Preview

We’re very happy to bring you this preview from our upcoming album Not the Sunley Band. Please note that this is not your average Sunley Band music, hence the album title. Some people may find some content offensive, others may find it confusing or frightening.

This particular track shouldn’t offend or frighten anybody. It may confuse some. This is our stab at creating a public service announcement rap about cervical screening. You can check out the unmastered preview on our Soundcloud page, and read our comments on it below.

This song is inspired by the cervical screening campaign television adverts. A woman in one of the ads proclaims: “It’s not like you can just say ‘have you had your … inspected lately'” and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to create a PSA rap in the mould of the Do The Right Thing campaign of the late eighties. As I set out writing I took advice from my feminist-blog-writing partner. She rightly pointed out that a cold speculum was not “a real big thrillah” by any means, but that it was OK to leave the line in because it rhymed. At this point in the process I honestly though that we could offer the song to the National Cervical Screening Programme for use in a future campaign. Maybe I was kidding myself. Certainly, when I heard Dangerfield’s verse I gave up that hope – I don’t think they would be cool asking women to “come in and let us poke around inside your lady parts,” or with us suggesting that the medical professional performing the screening would also provide a foot massage. Oh well. It’s a shame, because the Programme does good work, and they deserve a hip tune or two.